Science and the 'sisterhood': Why is mixing feminism and facts not kosher?

http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
WHAT do advancing age, smoking, being overweight and sexually
transmitted diseases have in common?

Each can negatively affect a woman's fertility, according to a new
ad campaign sponsored by the American Society for Reproductive
Medicine. The society is the largest professional organization of
fertility specialists in the United States, and it has raised quite a stir
because of a public service campaign splashing the information
across provocative posters on buses in suburban Chicago, New
York and Seattle.

No one seems to mind pointing the declining-fertility finger at
smoking, weight, or disease --- but advancing age is a landmine.
Sean Tipton of the society told me that doctors behind the
campaign considered dropping the warning about age, knowing it
was a social hot potato. But, because it's such a major risk factor,
they finally felt compelled to include it --- let the chips fall where they
may. They weren't being paranoid. As Tipton explained, it was
difficult even to find an advertising agency that would take on the
age aspect of the campaign.

And no sooner had Newsweek magazine featured a cover story this
week on fertility, age, and the launch of the public service
announcements than leading feminists voiced their opposition.

Kim Gandy, the new president of the National Organization for
Women, predictably made the round of top talk shows denouncing
the age element of the the society initiative. The complaint she and
other feminists share? Women, they argue, already know about
their biological clock, so this stress on it just adds to a woman's,
well, stress. Worse, Gandy told me, "it may needlessly pressure
women to start families before they are ready."

Gandy objects to the "screaming headline" on the age poster,
"Advancing age decreases your ability to have children." Yet, it
happens to be true. The text of the add reads that "while women
and their partners must be the ones to decide the best time when
(and if) to have children, women in their twenties and early thirties
are most likely to conceive. Infertility is a disease affecting 6.1
million people in the United States."

That's hardly coercive.

Sure, as Gandy emphatically reiterated to me, there are women in
their forties who have no trouble conceiving while their much
younger sisters struggle to get pregnant. But the fact remains that
advancing age is a major risk factor for decreased fertility in
women, and on average, women in the United States are
dramatically delaying the age at which they first give birth. In a
generation, there has been a significant increase in first births to
women in their 30s and 40s, and a corresponding drop in first births
to women in their twenties, though still just two percent of all
babies are born to women over 40.

Enter fertility specialist Dr. Michael Soules. He spearheaded the
campaign because, he says, he was frustrated at consistently
seeing heart-broken women in their late thirties and early forties
who wanted to start a family - and couldn't. For example, about 33
percent of women in their thirties who undergo in vitro fertilization
will conceive, but only about 8 percent of women in their forties will.
In addition, the risk of birth defects and miscarriage are much
higher for women over forty.

Maybe some older moms-in-waiting didn't know the risk of delaying
the start of their families. Maybe some had no choice but to wait.
Maybe others knew the risks, but just thought or hoped infertility
wouldn't happen to them.

In any event no one is blaming the victim. It's just that in spite of
regular news reports of breathtaking technological advances in
fertility treatments, Dr. Mark Sauer of Columbia University's Center
for Women's Reproductive Care told Newsweek "we haven't seen
any real improvement in treating women over 40. You can't change
biology."

But knowledge is power. We're not talking about hip replacement
surgery here, something a person has to find the least bad time to
deal with. Having children is a joyous life event that most women
want. No one should be afraid of giving women information about
maximizing their opportunities for that joyous event. Can't we trust
women to be smart enough to use this information wisely?

The siren song of feminism has long been: Your life on your terms,
baby -- career, marriage, men, money, children, all if, and precisely
when, you want them. Maybe the real concern of leading feminists,
then, is that these public service announcements may help more
women to make the choices that are right for them -- regardless of
whether those choices advance the cause of the
Sisterhood.

JWR contributor Betsy Hart, a frequent commentator on CNN and the Fox News Channel, can be reached by clicking here.